Category: Misc.

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Misc.

Uncle Mark’s Gift Guide and Almanac 2008

Mark Hurst writes one of my favorite blogs, Good Experience. It’s all about customer experience and usability — essentially, how organizations can create products, services, and Web sites that are more helpful and easier to use. For the past five years, Hurst has put together Uncle Mark’s Gift Guide and Almanac. The 2008 edition is now available as a free PDF.

From his introduction:

If you’re not familiar with Uncle Mark, here’s the deal: I review all the major consumer technology products and give my ONE favorite pick in each category… not the “17 top digital cameras”, but the ONE camera that you should buy. The guide concludes with an Almanac section where I say whatever comes to mind, mostly tips and tricks that I can’t fit anywhere else.

I don’t agree with all of Hurst’s suggestions, but his approach to selecting the best gadgets is spot-on: When it comes to consumer electronics, simplicity is vastly under-valued by product designers the world over. Just because more features are possible doesn’t mean they’re a good idea.

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The World’s Worst Airports

The World's Worst Airports [Not My Image]

“The World’s Worst Airports,” from Foreign Policy, names “five airports around the world that make traveling hell.” They pick those in Dakar, Senegal; New Delhi, India; Mineralnye Vody, Russia; Baghdad; and Paris.

Last year A and I visited Indira Gandhi International Airport, in New Delhi. While the crowds massed outside can, indeed, seem chaotic, I must say the place didn’t seem quite this bad:

Visitors report aggressive panhandlers, filthy bathrooms where attendants charge for toilet paper, and used syringes on the terminal floor. The main terminal building was even closed to visitors for a few months in 1999 after a flight from Nepal was hijacked. Things have hopefully gotten a little safer since an Australian tourist was murdered by a taxi driver leaving IGIA in 2004, prompting the Indian government to form a special tourist police force. But there’s still a danger of things going slightly awry: In 2005, an act of sabotage in an ongoing feud between cable television providers led to a pornographic film appearing on the airport’s television monitors…

I do, however, remember that there were mosquitos inside the terminal. That wasn’t so great. And while our taxi driver certainly didn’t assault us, his ancient Ambassador taxi cab broke down less than five minutes after we left the airport. He fixed the engine with the assistance of nearby pedestrians. And what appeared to be a piece of string.

If you enjoy reading about bad airports, don’t miss this exceptional Economist article from December, 2006: “Kama Sutra and feral cats,” in which the author explains that “to understand contemporary Russia,” one must “consider its airports.”

(Foreign Policy link via World Hum.)

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Misc.

Photos from Koh Chang, Chanthaburi, and Around Bangkok

Yours Truly

I recently purchased the excellent Nikon D40 camera. And a trip down to Koh Chang and Chanthaburi last week afforded me the perfect opportunity to put my new toy photojournalism tool through its paces.

You can see all 40 images in the set here.

Following are some of my favorite pics:

Leaving Koh Chang

A ferry sets off for Koh Chang.

Outlying Island, Koh Chang

A small island off the coast of Koh Chang.

Koh Chang

Winding road in Koh Chang.

Chanthaburi at Night

The scene from my hotel balcony in Chanthaburi.

Vendors in Chanthaburi

Vendors in Chanthaburi.

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Misc.

Ecuador’s President Wants Military Base in Miami

Rafael Correa, Ecuador's New President

Reuters:

Ecuador’s leftist President Rafael Correa said Washington must let him open a military base in Miami if the United States wants to keep using an air base on Ecuador’s Pacific coast.

Correa has refused to renew Washington’s lease on the Manta air base, set to expire in 2009. U.S. officials say it is vital for counter-narcotics surveillance operations on Pacific drug-running routes.

“We’ll renew the base on one condition: that they let us put a base in Miami — an Ecuadorean base,” Correa said in an interview during a trip to Italy.

“If there’s no problem having foreign soldiers on a country’s soil, surely they’ll let us have an Ecuadorean base in the United States.”

The U.S. embassy to Ecuador says on its Web site that anti-narcotics flights from Manta gathered information behind more than 60 percent of illegal drug seizures on the high seas of the Eastern Pacific last year…

(Emphasis mine.)

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Misc.

Virtual Airplane Rides in Delhi

Pic from Airplane! [Not My Image]

Times Online:

An Indian entrepreneur has given a new twist to the concept of low-cost airlines. The passengers boarding his Airbus 300 in Delhi do not expect to go anywhere because it never takes off.

All they want is the chance to know what it is like to sit on a plane, listen to announcements and be waited on by stewardesses bustling up and down the aisle.

In a country where 99% of the population have never experienced air travel, the “virtual journeys” of Bahadur Chand Gupta, a retired Indian Airlines engineer, have proved a roaring success.

As on an ordinary aircraft, customers buckle themselves in and watch a safety demonstration. But when they look out of the windows, the landscape never changes. Even if “Captain” Gupta wanted to get off the ground, the plane would not go far: it only has one wing and a large part of the tail is missing.

None of that bothers Gupta as he sits at the controls in his cockpit. His regular announcements include, “We will soon be passing through a zone of turbulence” and “We are about to begin our descent into Delhi.”

(Emphasis mine.)

Airplane! Image via Wikipedia.

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Misc.

Evo Morales on The Daily Show

Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, appeared recently on The Daily Show. The clip is available on YouTube.

Bolivia expert Miguel Centellas has some commentary.

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Misc.

Lonely Planet: Sold to BBC World

Tony and Maureen Wheeler, Lonely Planet Founders, in Bangkok

World Hum:

Big news in the travel publishing world: BBC Worldwide has purchased indie guidebook publisher Lonely Planet. Founders Tony and Maureen Wheeler will retain a 25 percent stake in the company they founded more than three decades ago. Reuters puts the price of the deal at $203 million. Tony Wheeler said he believes the sale will help Lonely Planet stay competitive while allowing the publisher to remain true to its original values. While he and Maureen will now have more time to travel, it wasn’t easy for them to “sell out,” he said. In an audio interview, he told Australia’s ABC, “It’s been 34 years, it’s been our entire working life together…It’s been a long road…although we’re convinced it’s the right thing for the business…it’s a difficult thing to do.” I can’t say I’m terribly surprised.

Read the whole post for more info.

Related: My Gridskipper post from last year, when the Wheelers were in Bangkok for a book signing.

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Misc.

Salon.com’s Ask the Pilot on the Phuket Plane Crash

OG Flight 269 [NOT MY IMAGE]

In today’s Ask the Pilot, a Salon.com column, the author tackles “wind shear, aging planes and the safety of budget airlines.”

(Image via Airliners.net.)

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Misc.

Ecuador: “Pay us not to drill for oil”

Rafael Correa, Ecuador's New President

From Foreign Policy’s blog, Passport:

In a unique environmental scheme, Ecuador’s government is asking developed nations to pay $350 million for them NOT to drill for oil in a major field in the heart of the Amazon. The sum represents about half of the estimated revenue that Ecuador would receive from drilling in the Yasuni National Park, a UNESCO-designated biosphere reserve that may contain up to a billion barrels of crude. Since Ecuador proposed the scheme last spring, politicians from Germany, Norway, Italy, Spain, and the EU have expressed interest, according to Ecuador’s minister of energy. President Rafael Correa…had this to say:

“Ecuador doesn’t ask for charity […] but does ask that the international community share in the sacrifice and compensates us with at least half of what our country would receive, in recognition of the environmental benefits that would be generated by keeping this oil underground.”

Read the whole post for more information.

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Misc.

File Under: Stories from a Small World

Grace and Colin in BA

My little brother C is studying in Buenos Aires this semester. So when A and I heard that our pal G — an American friend who used to live here in Bangkok — would be passing through Argentina, I put G in touch with C faster than you can say carne asada.

Hence, this excellent image of the two of them: Siam, the US of A, Argentina — it’s a crazy, haphazard world we live in, but it’s comforting to know that even in faraway places blood relations and dear friends can gather for a meeting of the minds, sight unseen, and enjoy some tasty vittles and red wine. Cheers to that.